


Not a bad guy

by Eledhwen



Series: Whose secret is it anyway? [3]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Brett is brilliant, Gen, Identity Reveal, good cops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 16:00:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17450009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eledhwen/pseuds/Eledhwen
Summary: The first time Brett Mahoney heard about the man who would go on to become Daredevil, it was from a drug dealer they’d just arrested. Arrested, and taken to Metro-General suffering from mild concussion, a busted wrist and a dislocated knee, along with his mate in similar condition.





	Not a bad guy

**Author's Note:**

> My take on the 'Brett finds out' theme which I know has been done by many. I found this harder to write than the reveals for Marci and Ellison, because more is shown in the show.
> 
> Many thanks for the comments and kudos for the earlier fics in this series. It's a while since I've written at all, and even longer since I wrote in such an active fandom, and it's lovely. :)

The first time Brett Mahoney heard about the man who would go on to become Daredevil, it was from a drug dealer they’d just arrested. Arrested, and taken to Metro-General suffering from mild concussion, a busted wrist and a dislocated knee, along with his mate in similar condition.

“So talk me through this,” Brett said, notebook at the ready.

“We were just minding our own business, man,” the drug dealer said, groggy still but awake.

“Minding your own business with a grand’s worth of cocaine in your pocket,” Brett agreed. “Sure.”

“And then he was just _there_ ,” the drug dealer persisted. “Came outta nowhere, man, I swear.”

“He?”

“Man in black,” said the drug dealer. “Couldn’t see his eyes. He just attacked us. Like a demon.”

Brett got down the information, and went off to give it to the detective in charge of the case. “Want us to find the guy who attacked them?” he asked.

“Not much to go on,” said the detective, “and in any case, we’ve had warrants out for these two for a while. He’s done us a favour.”

The reports picked up after that. First once a week, and then several times a week. The 15th Precinct were kept busy, picking up the victims of the man in black or taking statements from the people he rescued. In the break room, there was constant argument and discussion about whether the man in black should be arrested, shot or celebrated. Brett tended to lean towards “thanked”.

The file labelled first ‘Mystery Vigilante’, and then ‘Devil of HK’ got thicker, and the talk in the break room moved on to speculation about who the man could be. Several of Brett’s colleagues were in the ‘off-duty Avenger’ camp, but Brett thought that was unlikely – surely an off-duty Avenger would do something less, well, Avengery.

The break room chat changed after the explosions, and after the death of Blake. The evidence against the Devil was compelling. Brett, like the rest of the precinct, was ready, if need be, to shoot the vigilante if he could be found.

He never thought that he’d end up facing the man. The force was called out en masse on a cold, wet night, to the scene of a warehouse fire. Fanning out around the surrounding area, they looked for suspects, and it was there, in an alley, Brett found the Devil.

They were both alone, and Brett felt a tremor of fear running through him, but he raised his gun and aimed it at the figure in black. And then, before he knew it, he was disarmed and in a chokehold, the man’s grip strong around his neck. Brett tried to remember the training he’d had all those years before in the academy, but it turned out that when actual violence was being done to you, memories of training vanished straight out of your head.

But the chokehold was as far as it went, and somehow Brett believed the man in black when he denied the spate of killings, and he even took note of what he said. It was only later that he wondered why the guy’s voice had sounded very, very slightly familiar.

He met the Devil for the second time on the night Wilson Fisk escaped from prison transport. Another alley, but this time his car headlights illuminated the scene in front of him. Fisk, unconscious on the floor, and a muscular, taut figure in red standing over him. It took a second for Brett to realise this was the Devil again, but the Devil in some kind of armoured costume that made him look bigger, scarier, more intimidating.

“I’m not the bad guy,” the Devil growled, again, and Brett, again, believed him. For a moment, he and the Devil looked at each other, and then the other turned and vanished – up a fire escape and away on the roof.

Now the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen was the Daredevil, a friendlier name but still one carrying the menace of violence done to those who deserved it. And it seemed as though many did deserve it, judging by the steady stream of calls made to the 15th. Slowly, but surely, the crime rate in Hell’s Kitchen began to drop. Break room discussion moved back to wondering who was in the suit, with the current favourite being some retired UFC fighter.

Problem was, others were starting to copy Daredevil – less efficient, messier people – and it was starting to rile Mahoney. He got a chance to tell the Devil so to his face, hidden under the stupid horned mask, but he was not sure his words hit home. The man was on a mission and the NYPD were only getting in the way.

Brett met the Devil for the fourth time in a cemetery. The tip-off that the Punisher could be found there had been made by a man speaking in a low, gravelly voice and Brett and his partner were somehow first on the scene. Daredevil was waiting, the Punisher propped up all bloody against a gravestone, and this time Brett managed to actually get handcuffs on his target.

“Take the collar,” the Devil said, and there was something in his tone this time which made Brett’s senses prick up.

The Devil talked, and his voice was persuasive, not angry. Brett listened, and was tempted, and gave into his words. He unlocked the handcuffs.

“I don’t know what you are,” he said, as Daredevil walked away without a backwards glance, “but I know you ain’t him.”

Promotion came quickly – and Brett’s life got more complicated. Running into Daredevil, whoever the guy was, seemed to be a regular occurrence for a while, although the promised end to vigilantism was apparently less forthcoming. Despite himself, Brett found he was somehow glad to see the man in the mask alive and well each time. He hated that he was glad, but there was definitely a bit of him that was comforted to know the guy was out there, smashing criminals’ faces into the sidewalks.

So he noticed when Daredevil’s appearances tailed off, soon after the crazy-ass fight involving actual ninjas on a rooftop. People stopped reporting him, and soon it was weeks since Brett or any of the other cops had seen him out and about. The break room started speculating that he had died, and Brett had to agree it was likely, the amount of shit the man seemed to get into.

What none of them had wanted was for Daredevil to pop up again and start actually, conclusively murdering people. The FBI got in on the _Bulletin_ massacre before the NYPD could, but Brett saw the pictures and wished he hadn’t. But it didn’t sit right with him.

It was when Daredevil attacked Clinton Church that Brett knew something was definitely wrong. The congregation, who had watched the Devil enter the holy place and call for Karen Page, were united in their statements: Daredevil had wanted her dead, and the only two reasons she wasn’t were because a mystery man in black had got there first, and because Father Lantom had stepped in front of Page and caught the weapon meant for her in his chest. The FBI’s assertion that Page was working _with_ Daredevil rang false even before Foggy Nelson turned up.

He waited until they were driving away, Page handcuffed on the back seat with Nelson next to her, before speaking up.

“Foggy, man, what the hell?”

“Yeah,” said Foggy, eloquently. “There’s a lot going on, Brett.”

“The man who killed Father Lantom wasn’t Daredevil,” Karen said, urgently. “The real Daredevil saved us.”

“Want to tell me how you know that for sure?” Brett asked.

In the rear-view mirror he could see Nelson and Page exchange glances. “Not right now,” said Nelson. “Privileged information, Brett. Look, can you just drop me at 48th and 9th?”

“I’ll drop you both there,” Brett said, deciding now was not the time to ask questions or start putting the answers tumbling together in his head into some order. He knew that if nothing else, Foggy Nelson was good people, and so he stopped and unlocked Page’s handcuffs, and said nothing.

He did not expect to hear again from Nelson that night, but later on his phone rang.

“Brett, we need a favour,” Nelson said.

“Who is we?”

“Me and Matt,” Nelson said. “We have a client who needs a safe place to stay.”

“Who’s the client?” Brett asked.

“Guy you met earlier tonight, in the church,” said Nelson, “and his wife and kid.” Brett sighed audibly and Nelson said, “we can find somewhere else.”

It was not difficult to persuade his mother to put a family up at short notice, especially when Brett told her it was connected to Fisk, and that Foggy Nelson had asked for the help. When Brett arrived at the designated meeting spot, he found FBI Agent Ray Nadeem huddled together with his wife and son and a couple of bags, with Nelson and Matt Murdock by their side.

Both the lawyers were in casual clothes; Brett thought it must have been the first time he had ever seen Murdock in anything other than a neat, if cheap, suit. The thought crossed his mind that it was the first time he’d seen Murdock at all for a while, and the first time he and Foggy had shared a client for months.

The man looked tired and pale in a slightly scruffy, close-fitting black pullover and black cargo pants with a pair of solid-looking boots on his feet. Brett gave the outfit a quick, hard look and got on with business.

“We’ll get a cab,” Nelson said, “and I’ll call you when the coast’s clear. You’ll be safe there,” he added, to the Nadeems, and Ray Nadeem gave him a quick, grateful nod.

The Fisk affair came to a rapid conclusion after that – a rapid, and brutal conclusion. Brett and his team arrived at Fisk’s penthouse amid the confusion of a wedding broken up by the man in the Daredevil suit, and too late to stop what had clearly been a hell of a fight. Fisk was exhausted and bloodied, but alive; his bride had blood on her silk dress; and the man in the Daredevil suit was lying paralysed on the floor.

Even before they took the mask off, Brett knew the suit was hiding a fake, and he knew too that the person who had made such a mess of Wilson Fisk’s face would be getting away as fast as he could. Daredevil did not hang around once the cops had arrived.

But Brett was sure he knew, now, who was really behind the mask. He waited a few weeks – as long as he could feasibly bear – before composing and sending a careful text message, an invitation to a drink.

He picked a quiet table at the back of the bar, sat down with his beer, and waited. Five minutes later, there was the soft tap-tap of a cane, and Matt Murdock slid into the seat opposite.

“Detective,” he said. He was back in his old red, circular sunglasses and back in a suit and tie, and for a moment Brett thought about backing out of the evening.

“Beer?” asked Brett.

“Sure,” said Murdock, and waited as Brett went to get the drink and bring it back.

“Thanks for coming,” Brett said, and cleared his throat. “I was sorry about your priest.”

“Yeah.” Murdock’s voice was low, and his shaded eyes were looking somewhere at Brett’s heart. “He was a good man.”

“Been a bit crazy round here lately,” Brett said. “Glad you two have your firm back up and running.” Murdock nodded, but he seemed distracted, as though he was listening to something that was not Brett’s conversation. “Mom will be glad to get her suppliers back,” Brett added, procrastinating.

“What did you want to talk about, Detective?” Murdock interrupted. “You didn’t ask me here to talk about your mother’s cigars, or about Father Lantom.”

Brett drank deeply from his beer and put the glass down. “Nah. No. I wanted to tell you that I know.”

“Know?” Murdock said.

“Damn you, man,” Brett said, lowering his voice. “You’re gonna make me say it? I know you’re the Daredevil.”

Murdock was silent for a moment, and Brett waited for the inevitable denial. Now that he’d said it – accused a blind man, of all things, of being a masked costumed superhero vigilante – it sounded insane.

“I thought you’d work it out eventually,” Murdock said, after a lengthy pause. “What was it?”

“Jesus, I’m right?” Brett said.

Picking up his beer, Murdock shrugged. “I’ve learned recently that knowing who to trust is a good thing. I trust you. You’re a good cop, and a decent man, and you let me walk when you could have arrested me. You deserve the truth. So what was it, that gave it away?”

“Just … loads of little things,” Brett said. “I always thought the Devil sounded familiar. And he shut down operations right after you and Fog stopped working together. But it was only after the church attack I really started wondering, when we took in the Nadeems.” He leaned forwards. “What I don’t get is the blind thing. I was just a kid too when you had your accident, but I remember hearing about it. Not often a kid from the Kitchen gets his mug splashed all over the front pages. Did your eyesight come back, or something? You just faking it?"

Murdock took off his glasses, but still failed to meet Brett’s inquiring gaze. His eyes were vacant and fixed. He let Brett look for a moment, and then slipped the shades back on.

“The accident enhanced everything else,” he said. “Smell, hearing, taste, touch. You had a hotdog for lunch, with mustard and onions. You use Old Spice deodorant.” He raised his glass. “This beer’s a week or so past its best, and they need to refresh the detergent in the glass washer. Guy over there is on the phone to his girlfriend, arguing about what to do at the weekend.”

“Hell,” said Brett, for want of anything better to say. “Foggy, does he …”

“Yeah,” Murdock said, and a complicated sort of expression crossed his face. “He knows. So what now, Detective?”

“You going to stop?” Brett asked. “With Fisk back in jail, and all?”

“Fisk wasn’t the only criminal out there,” Murdock said.

Brett leaned back in his chair. “Yeah. And you’re not the bad guy.”

“You _were_ listening,” Murdock said, a smile flickering over his lips.

“Man, if I’d wanted to arrest you, I’d have done it already,” Brett said.

“Liar,” said Murdock, cheerfully now. “Look. I won’t stop. But I can promise you, I don’t hurt cops. I don’t hurt the innocent. And I don’t kill.” He pushed his half-empty glass away, and stood up. “Thanks for the beer, Detective.”

“Brett,” said Brett.

“Matt,” said Murdock, and held out a hand, the knuckles scarred. “See you around.”

Brett watched him leave, the cane tapping a pattern on the ground in front of him, and finished his drink. Murdock was right, the beer was off.


End file.
